fun tricks for anyone who wants to get to sleep quickly: consciously thinking of and trying to relax each of your muscles, from your face, to your shoulders, down your arms and into your fingertips and so on. Sometimes, you might be tensed up in some subtle way without realizing it, and part of falling asleep is getting fully relaxed. Do this in your head a few times if you need to, but this actually does help me fall asleep somewhat more quickly than just laying there and waiting. I remember reading somewhere this was how new sailors in the Navy learned to fall asleep at sea when they weren’t used to a moving bed, but that could’ve been bullshit, feel free to research that yourself.
Another one is, start with your hands flat on your thighs or your stomach (this assumes you sleep on your back, so this one actually isn’t very effective for me) and start tapping your hands down, alternating which hand, lightly on your body at a constant rhythm for a little bit, and then just gradually slow the rhythm down. This didn’t really work well for me because I’m a side sleeper, but YMMV. This was one I got from some TED(x?) talk I’m too lazy to go find.
These might not help if you have like, chronic insomnia or something, but if you just want tomorrow to come faster instead of dwelling on every mistake you’ve ever made for ~20 minutes, they might work for you.
I listen to the history of the roman empire by Mike Duncan. I literally just listen to something I enjoy and wake up next morning. I can count on my hand the times it hasn’t worked in the last year and those were all me trying to take a nap full of coffee.
see, me I need white noise to sleep. I absolutely can not fall asleep with voices, music, or other ambient noises in the room (or plugged into my ears) unless I’m completely dead tired, I’ve tried and it has usually resulted in several hours of laying awake.
I’m the same with music and most podcasts and even my chosen one at anything above moderate volume. Not sure why it works for me but as long as it fits as a bedtime story it seems to work. I also can’t fall asleep to something like Darknet diaries, it’s just too exciting and too much “ok what happens next” and cliffhangers instead of the story being delivered to me normally.
You can absolutely get yourself to respond to a trigger that you make up. Sure, relaxation is also useful on its own, but I am pretty sure that a good chunk of the effect of that is Pavlov-ing yourself to sleep. “I always do this right before I fall asleep, so when I do this, I will fall asleep”.
fun tricks for anyone who wants to get to sleep quickly: consciously thinking of and trying to relax each of your muscles, from your face, to your shoulders, down your arms and into your fingertips and so on. Sometimes, you might be tensed up in some subtle way without realizing it, and part of falling asleep is getting fully relaxed. Do this in your head a few times if you need to, but this actually does help me fall asleep somewhat more quickly than just laying there and waiting. I remember reading somewhere this was how new sailors in the Navy learned to fall asleep at sea when they weren’t used to a moving bed, but that could’ve been bullshit, feel free to research that yourself.
Another one is, start with your hands flat on your thighs or your stomach (this assumes you sleep on your back, so this one actually isn’t very effective for me) and start tapping your hands down, alternating which hand, lightly on your body at a constant rhythm for a little bit, and then just gradually slow the rhythm down. This didn’t really work well for me because I’m a side sleeper, but YMMV. This was one I got from some TED(x?) talk I’m too lazy to go find.
These might not help if you have like, chronic insomnia or something, but if you just want tomorrow to come faster instead of dwelling on every mistake you’ve ever made for ~20 minutes, they might work for you.
try to relax your anus, I mean your shoulders
I listen to the history of the roman empire by Mike Duncan. I literally just listen to something I enjoy and wake up next morning. I can count on my hand the times it hasn’t worked in the last year and those were all me trying to take a nap full of coffee.
see, me I need white noise to sleep. I absolutely can not fall asleep with voices, music, or other ambient noises in the room (or plugged into my ears) unless I’m completely dead tired, I’ve tried and it has usually resulted in several hours of laying awake.
I’m the same with music and most podcasts and even my chosen one at anything above moderate volume. Not sure why it works for me but as long as it fits as a bedtime story it seems to work. I also can’t fall asleep to something like Darknet diaries, it’s just too exciting and too much “ok what happens next” and cliffhangers instead of the story being delivered to me normally.
You can absolutely get yourself to respond to a trigger that you make up. Sure, relaxation is also useful on its own, but I am pretty sure that a good chunk of the effect of that is Pavlov-ing yourself to sleep. “I always do this right before I fall asleep, so when I do this, I will fall asleep”.
I keep waking up after ~6 hours to wiz and struggle to go back to sleep for the last 1-2 hours, so I appreciate this
I tried counting sheep the other night and it kinda worked but my mind wanders a lot, so maybe these tricks will be better
Thanks!